


Sunday is a Good Day

by NotYourHoney



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mechanics, Domestic, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Mentions of Abuse, and no poe does not abuse finn or vice versa, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 04:38:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13562982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotYourHoney/pseuds/NotYourHoney
Summary: Finn buys a shitty Honda. Poe is a mechanic and makes sure it doesn’t kill him. The Honda, however, is not the only problem. Mechanic!AU. Please read the tags for warnings.





	Sunday is a Good Day

First, there was a rattle. Finn could live with a rattle. Then, he realized he’d taken a wrong turn at Sixth and tried to shift into reverse. The gear stick moved like it was pushing through cement. But no, that wasn’t the last straw. His last straw was when ten minutes later, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a cloud of blue smoke trailing out of his exhaust. He swore and quickly, or as quickly as he could with an unresponsive car, turned around, searching up and down the road for a car shop.

He was lucky; a little shop was two blocks down. He pulled in, got out of the car, and gingerly closed the door before he walked in. He was very lucky. They were open on a Sunday. 

An old man stood at the front desk, the toothpick dangling between his lips muddling his speech when he asked, “Can I help you?” He was reading a newspaper, and sat it down to look up at Finn. 

Finn scratched the side of his face. “Yeah! Uh, my car’s been acting up all morning and it just started smoking up real bad.”

“How’s it acting up?”

Finn paused for a moment to think. “The car was rattling, and my shift was sticky. The steering wheel even, now that I think about it. It isn’t moving the car as well as it used to.”

“What’d the smoke look like?” The man glanced back down at his paper.

“Light blue? I was driving back from uni, and a half hour into driving-”

“Wait, a half hour in? Blue?”

“Yeah. Just started smoking blue. Well, pale blue.” He squirmed, pulling a loose thread at the bottom of his sweater. He didn’t know jack shit about cars, but the way this guy’s tone shifted told him it was something he should be worried about.

“Shit... Got your keys?” 

Finn nodded, pulling them out of his pocket. “It’s the Civic parked outside, it has a-”

“I know what a Civic looks like, boy.” The man winked at him, taking the keys from his hand. “I’m Han. I’ll pull your car into the garage and then we’ll see what’s the matter. Don’t move.”

And then he left before Finn could thank him or introduce himself, and Finn was alone again, alone in the tiny, weird looking office. It wasn’t like any automobile office he’d seen before. Didn’t look to be owned by any sort of big business. Above the desk was a big, flashy sign. It reminded him of the hollywood-esque neon signs he saw in the older parts of the city. Finn took a photo of it with his phone to save the number. 

SOLO AUTO BODY  
NEVER TELL US THE ODDS! WE’LL FIX IT.  
+1 8758362846

He snorted and put his phone away, then looked around the shop properly. It was the shape of a shoebox. There was a door next to the desk, looking to be leading out to the garage. On the other side of the desk was an office, also closed off, blinds drawn on the windows lining half the wall. There were photos of cars lined up on the walls from the floor to the ceiling, old cars from the 80’s with wild modifications and faded colours, and there was a clock that ticked. Beside him were two more empty chairs. They looked like they’d once been a scratching post for a cat. Besides that, the room was empty. The garage door roared open. The clock ticked. 

He slouched in his seat, rubbing his eyes and groaning. He couldn’t afford a proper car. He needed to pay for school and rent before he could worry about that, so he had settled on a shitty beat up 2005 Honda Civic. It took him from point A to point B, and that was all that mattered. Well, it used to be all that mattered before it started spouting blue smoke and sticking between gears and overall trying to kill him. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

He heard talking in the garage. Two voices. The clock kept ticking.

The garage door (he had been right) opened up, and there was Han. “You got a second to talk to the mechanic?” He shot up and nodded, and Han stepped aside for him to enter the garage. 

It was bigger than it looked like it would be on the outside, with the open garage door letting in the cool spring breeze and a lot of sunlight. He noticed lots of old cars, just like in the photographs in the office. He admired them in awe as Han weaved them through cars in varying states of decay and disarray. 

“We don’t often let people in the back, but your car had more problems than you noticed. Safety hazard and all that. Bunch of junk, I say, but Poe insisted.” Finn snapped his head back to the front again. He spotted his car, looking ironically modern, and two orange clad legs sticking out from under it. 

“Poe! Get out from under there. I brought- What’s your name, boy?”

“Finn.” He meant to say more, but then the two legs wriggled to reveal a torso, a bright orange jumpsuit halfway undone, car grease dirtying a once white tank top that revealed strong arms and the most handsome man he had ever seen in his life. 

“Finn, is it?” Poe sat up and mopped some of the grease off with a towel. Finn could only nod. He knew his voice would crack if he tried to speak. The man- Poe- continued. 

“Finn, I gotta be honest- she’s not looking good. Dripping oil like crazy. And blue smoke... I wasn’t too worried before I saw the oil underneath. Might have to replace the head gasket, but that’s not too big of a problem. We haven’t even done an internal check yet though, so there could be more we need to replace and fix.” 

Finn felt a hot pressure on his ears just holding eye contact with Poe. “Cars aren’t really my forte… Is it all fixable?”

“‘Course it is!” Poe said with a grin. “Anything is fixable! I’ll check your shift and steering wheel too and see what I can do about them, but mostly we’re glad you came now rather than sooner.” Finn nodded, tapping his fingers against his sides. “You want me to tell you what all that stuff I said just now means while I work?” There was a playful tone in his voice and Finn laughed, leaning against the hood of the car. Poe was absolutely covered in car oil, and his hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and probably, more car grease. He was beautiful. 

“Well, I know an oil drip isn’t good. I’m not that clueless. I just don’t know what a- a head gasket? What that is.” Poe opened up the driver’s side and stuck half his body in, and Finn chomped down on the inside of his cheek so hard it nearly bled. He took a steadying breath.

Poe continued. “Well, a head gasket is what separates all your fluids, coolant and oil and all that. Keeps everything clean and running smoothly. So if-”

HONK! 

His elbow hit the horn, and he jumped in surprise. Finn couldn’t help himself. He doubled over laughing. Poe was shocked for a second more before he started to laugh as well. 

“You know I- I’ve been a mech’ for eight years, eight years now! And I still always do that.” Finn sniffed, still smiling. There was just something so comical about such a confident man suddenly looking so shocked with half his body crammed into a tiny car. 

Finn tugged at the collar of his jumper. It gave him an excuse to look at something else, to think a split second before the next words came out of his mouth. “Eight years? You don’t look it.” Poe’s head was down by the brakes, but he stuck his arm out to wave dismissively. “You sound like Han’s wife. Always talking like that, her! Sweet lady. Real sweet. You’d like her.” There was a fondness in Poe’s voice when he spoke of her. He didn’t speak again for several more minutes, and Finn didn’t either. Han had retreated into the office again a while ago. 

Finn snuck glances at Poe while he worked. They slowly fell into casual conversation, the kind that built off of small talk. Every now and then, they’d laugh about something, or Poe would crack a joke, and Finn’s heart would melt a little when the corners of his eyes would crinkle when he laughed. He talked about Han’s wife, Leia, and mentioned her often and in good nature. He talked about Han and how he could be an asshole. He talked about his cat, Baby Eight- that explained the scratched up chairs- and all the while, Finn talked back. Talked about his school, how he’d ended up with this car. Talked about the pet snake he left back home. All sorts of things. It wasn’t hard to talk to Poe. He made Finn relaxed, still managing to work while he talked. 

They didn’t notice the hours passing, not until Poe had to stop to pull his jumpsuit on properly as the chill of evening set in. “Alright. Alright, it’s done. I did what I could but hey, if you find any more problems, you drive right over, you hear?” Finn nodded with a smile. Poe was smiling too. Finn could get lost in that smile if he let himself. Instead, he cleared his throat and looked back at the car. 

“Keys in her?” He heard a scuffle of Poe’s boots as he checked. 

“Yup. I’ll take you to Han’s office for the payments.” 

And there it was again, that anxious lump in his throat. Something must have faltered on his face, because Poe squeezed his shoulder and smiled. 

“It’s a family business, and you said you’ve got it insured. Han may not look it, but he’s real good at talking to those insurance people.” He pulled Finn by the arm between the cars. “I don’t know how he does it! I don’t like to get involved in money stuff. Takes the fun out of everything.” Finn agreed, looking down at where Poe’s grease covered hand was grasping his sweater. He’d have to wash it to get the grease off. He didn’t mind. 

True to Poe’s word, the bill was manageable. Poe waved him goodbye as he finally got in his car and reversed out of the parking lot- the shift was much smoother now- and headed home. It was dark now, but he realized that he didn’t live very far away. He parked, grabbed his backpack from the back, and trekked upstairs to his apartment. 

After grabbing some leftover pasta, he settled in to study for a few hours. But every time he tried to focus on the numbers which he usually loved so dearly, his mind drifted to Poe.

And then a tightness would ball up in his chest again, and there was that lump in his throat. A shift in his mood, a crackle in the air around him that wasn’t there before, on that had the fine hairs on his arms standing on end. 

He shifted in his chair. It creaked under his weight. He whipped his head around and surveyed the room, then got up and closed the curtains, then double checked that his door was locked. When he sat back down, it took only a moment before he was back up again to check again that it was indeed locked and then, he had to triple check that the stove was off, that the oven was off. He unplugged his appliances. Again, he checked the door. It was still locked. He crouched under his bed and grabbed the navy coloured box he kept under there, and indestructible fireproof box, and rattled it to make sure it was alright. He made himself sit after that. He’d taken a photo of the lock and the empty plugs. He could be certain.

When he laid in bed after a few hours of halfway successful studying, the night seemed to drag. Sleep never came. 

-

June came in what felt like a week. Finn quickly learned that his car had far more problems than he had known before he bought it. At first, he would bring it to the auto body to get it fixed, to pump a deflated tire or replace his brakes. One time, on his way to check why his transmission was acting up, the steering wheel fell clean into his lap. He visited the shop twenty six times.

But on rare occasion, and this was rare, there wasn’t really anything wrong with his car, and he didn’t really need to go to the shop. He’d mumble some excuse, that his tire pressure was low or he saw smoke the other day, and Han would always give him an odd little smile, one he didn’t quite understand. 

Poe never minded having Finn around, and Finn became quite good at knowing which tools he wanted handed to him. They would talk about all manners of things, absolutely anything to make the time pass. Finn learned that Poe had a thing for cats, and had owned twenty four throughout his life. He also repaired small stunt planes, which were his favourite to work on. 

“There’s nothing like flying them,” he’d say, his eyes dreamy. “You lose yourself in it, you watch the world disappear and no one can stop you.” Finn never tired of listening to him talk about the world and his cats and the tiny airplanes that disappeared into the clouds. 

They would sit and eat lunch together, right there in the garage. Poe would spend a solid five minutes scrubbing his hands with soap and water to get all the grease off before he touched any food. Then they’d sit up against a car, side by side, and eat. Finn would let his thigh bump Poe’s, and Poe wouldn’t move, and Poe would brush his hand for a second too long, and they would say nothing. It drove him nuts. Made his heart pound. 

Poe always seemed so at peace, like he himself woke the sun every morning, and it was addictive. Finn wanted to be around that stubborn determination every day. It was a balance, that he was happy but human. He didn’t look for problems, but rather for things to find hope in. He liked what he did and it showed, in the way he joked with Finn while he tinkered away, sometimes at the cars coming in, and sometimes at the old cars, it was carefree and full of life. Even when he would argue with Han, he didn’t take it out on Finn. Finn didn’t want to steal from that joy. 

So they talked of happy things, of how Finn wanted to become a data analyst scientist, how he had to apply for grad school in the fall of next year, and Poe spoke of adopting a little brother for Baby Eight. 

The touches grew more frequent. Finn swore he saw Poe looking at him differently, but Poe was quick, and he never quite got the look. 

Finn let loose a few details. A few slips of the tongue. “My family was just too conservative. Didn’t sit right,” when asked why he had moved so far away. Poe would nod in understanding. And that was that.

-

He liked to draw, and sometimes, he would bring his sketchpad and sit on the cement ground in the shade of whatever car Poe was working on, away from the hot July sun, and draw while they talked or listened to music. 

“Frank Ocean? Really? Doesn’t seem like your type of music!” 

Poe laughed, the sound muffled by the car that he was under. “He’s good!” Finn smiled. He turned back to his drawing, and faintly, he heard Poe humming along to the song. 

“...He is good,” he said eventually, rocking his head to the music. 

“What’d I tell you?”

He closed his eyes and just listened. The garage door was left open and the sun basked in, bouncing light off the mirrors in the cars and making their windows gleam. Occasionally, a car would whizz by. People would walk past, talking and laughing, and he would hear the buzz of insects roaming, enjoying the summer months just as much as anyone else would. They never closed the garage door, not until night fell and they closed up shop.

These were the kinds of days he went home and slept through the night.

-

Han would always tease that Finn didn’t have a life outside of school and the garage, that he may as well leave school and do an apprenticeship, become a mechanic like Poe. Finn didn’t know how to explain it, so he would just laugh it off and humour Han. He felt that Han had seen more in life than he let on. He was snarky, sure, and rude at times, but he had a sense of humour no matter how bad the situation got. He dealt with the real specific requests, the aesthetic based demands, and he always made them work, no matter how difficult. Really lived up to his slogan. 

Poe wasn’t in the shop when Finn entered. No one was at the front desk, so he let himself into the garage. He’d been coming often enough that Han let him. Inside, Han was inspecting a car he was near finished working on, a 1970 Chevy Chevelle. It was painted light blue, the two black stripes running over the hood popping nicely. He looked up when he heard Finn’s footsteps. 

“Poe’s picking up some supplies for a project.” He didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know why Finn was here. “Should be back in an hour or two.” He kept circling around the car, looking for little imperfections. 

“It looks really good.” Han snorted, looking up at him from where he had crouched to inspect a tire. 

“I know. I’m gloating.” He stood back up, looking at Finn. He looked at him for a long while, not saying a word. “He mentioned you earlier. Talked about that thing you drive around on.” Finn laughed, ducking his head down.

“I wouldn’t be able to drive it around anymore if it weren’t for him. I don’t know how he does it.” Han shrugged, slipping his leather jacket off and swinging it over his shoulder. A buzzer rang, alerting them that the door to the office had opened. 

“He’s clever. But he’s clueless.” He winked at Finn and then walked into the office, leaving Finn sputtering for excuses. 

-

One time, in the middle of July, they were sitting against an ancient thing from the late 60’ eating lunch together. It was a day he would never forget. He had noticed a chain dangled around Poe’s neck. A ring was looped onto it, a little silver band with diamonds embezzled into it. He pointed at it and asked, “What’s that?” Poe looked down at the ring and smiled, his face soft. “This was my mother’s wedding ring. She gave it to me before she passed away.”

Finn leaned back against the car. “You guys had a real close relationship, right?” 

Poe hummed. “She wasn’t home a whole lot. Flew those big international planes. Dad raised me, really. She still called every day.” They fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments more, and Finn thought that was the end of it. Then Poe suddenly spoke. His voice had dropped to a near whisper.

“When I get married, I’d like to give it to my love. She would want that, I think.” 

Finn cleared his throat and then nodded. “I think she would.” Poe paused. He looked at Finn, and he could feel their legs bumping together. Finn’s face felt hot.

“I believe it. I really do. She just wanted me to love. It was her dying wish, you know?”

“How’d she die, if I could ask?”

“Car accident. Semi T-boned her.”

Something clicked into place right then. The reason Poe didn’t take his love for planes further. Finn understood. He didn’t want anyone else ending up like his mother. 

“She sounds like she was an incredible person.” Poe laughed. He’d held Finn’s gaze. Finn held it back. 

“She was a ball of sunlight.” They both didn’t say anything. Poe was so close to him, looking at him with such a confusing gaze, one that Finn didn’t understand, like the one Han gave him whenever he walked in. Like he knew something Finn didn’t. But with Poe, it made his breath hitch. It made his heart race. He didn’t want to think about it, not yet, didn’t want to think about how Poe was leaning closer ever so slowly.

Poe’s shoulder bumped Finn’s, and he leaned his head to rest it on Finn’s shoulder. They sat in silence, neither one of them quite knowing what to say. 

-

Finals were excruciating for Finn. His rituals were becoming more intrusive to his day to day life, so the study regimen he usually stuck by so easily grew agonizing. He was used to being the perfect student, the one with the 4.0, the one that corrected the teacher. Losing himself in his studies was a method he had adopted to quell his anxiety, and it had become a part of his identity. He was smart. That was all that most people knew about him. So when he started struggling on his exams, panic arose. 

By the time exams were over and he had that damned paper in his hands, the one that would determine if all of his hard work had paid off and he would be able to get into the grad school of his dreams, he had exhausted himself. He’d woken up four times last night to make sure that all of his appliances were unplugged and the sockets were covered with tape, that his light bulbs were unscrewed and set in a box on a soft pillow, that his clocks had the batteries taken out, and that every door and window was locked. It was tiring. He couldn’t sleep unless he did it. He couldn’t explain it, and he couldn’t tell his professors that he was struggling.

Holding his breath, he opened the envelope and scanned the paper for numbers. His shoulders froze. 

3.99. His GPA had dropped. It felt like someone had punched him in the gut. His head began to throb as angry tears clouded his vision. Every grad school he’d applied to wanted a 4.1 at the least, and he had never had a problem with that before. He clenched the paper in his hands, wrinkling it as he read the number over and over, then attempted to smooth it out again.

He hurled the paper aside. It gracefully drifted onto the bed as he got up and paced around his room. A moment later, he reached into his bedside drawer for the box of cigarettes tucked in the back. It wasn’t something he did often, smoking, but when he was stressed he allowed himself a cigarette rather than let himself fall into something more immediately destructive. Cigarettes and a lighter in his pocket, he stormed out of his apartment and down to his car. 

Music blared on the drive over to the shop. When he arrived, he got out and slammed the door shut and pushed his way into the shop, past someone talking to Han, earning him a stern look from him. He didn’t care. 

Poe was leaned against a car in the garage and scanning over a clipboard. He looked up when he heard Finn’s footsteps. His face scrunched in confusion. “You okay?”

Finn plopped down on the floor next to Poe and said nothing, scowling. He could hear the clipboard being set on the hood of the car before Poe slid down to sit next to him. His shoulder bumped Finn’s, and Finn jerked himself away. He glanced up at Poe. He had that look on his face that he got when he had just argued with Han. A blank expression, but the twitching at the corners of his lips and the furl of his brows gave away his annoyance. “Did I do something?”

Finn took a deep breath. “No, you didn’t.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t need to tell you.”

He looked away, but he could feel Poe bristle next to him. He felt awful, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt overwhelmingly angry. His throat felt dry as he wrung his fingers. Neither of them said anything as he reached into his pocket and popped out a cigarette. He stuck it between his lips and lit it. There were a few minutes of silence that seemed to drag on for hours. Poe had pulled his knees up to his chest and was staring straight ahead with that same icy stare. Finn wondered if it was his fault. Of course it is, he thought to himself. Of course it’s my fault. Nothing else makes him mad. 

It only added to the irritation he felt, building it more and more until he blurted, “God, why did I even come here?” 

He winced as soon as the words left his mouth, and Poe quickly stood up. “You’re right. You clearly don’t wanna be here.” 

Finn got to his feet. The regret was replaced with aggravation again as he met Poe’s gaze. Poe was stony faced and his eye contact didn’t waver. 

“You know what? I thought I did. I was wrong.”

“You should leave, then.”

“No, not before I-”

“Finn, get out. Get out of here.” 

“I don’t fucking want to, Poe. I just don’t.” 

“Finn, get out! I don’t want to see you! Fuck you, Christ, can’t you tell when someone doesn’t want to see you?” There was a wetness in Poe’s eyes. His jaw was clenched, his chin raised. His breathing was ragged. Finn faltered. Poe was dead serious. 

“I didn’t…” Finn bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything more, before turning on his heel and promptly leaving. Han grabbed him by the shoulder before he could leave out the office door and gave him that same stern look from earlier. “What do you want?” Finn snapped at him. 

“What did you tell Poe?”

“None of your fucking business.”

Han scowled at him. “Hell if it’s my business,” he hissed, ”he’s upset. It’s the anniversary of his mother’s death. I heard yelling. I wanted to tell you to leave him today, but I was with someone.”

Finn’s mouth felt dry. His silence stretched on long enough for Han to shake him a little, and he yanked away. “Why did you make him come to work?”

Han glared at Finn, growing more and more agitated. “I didn’t make him. He never comes in on this day.”

Finn stared at Han for a moment as the man’s shoulders slumped. “Finn, what did you say?” Finn shook his head and let out a deep breath. Without saying another word, he stumbled out of the shop and got in his car, driving home as fast as he could.

He didn’t visit the garage the next day, nor the day after that. He ignored phonecalls from the shop, and then from Poe himself. July came to an end. He and Poe did not speak.

-

It was August that the fire happened. A Saturday night. The firemen said it could’ve been absolutely anything that started it, with how dry the air was. Said that Finn was lucky to get out, lucky he had a fireproof box where he kept his valuables. Lucky it was just a few second degree burns and a smack on the head with a brick that felt like embers, but no concussion. Nothing permanent.

Lucky. The term was subjective. Finn was “lucky” because he wasn’t dead.

They said no one died in the fire, but a few pets couldn’t be saved. He thought of Poe, and he thought of his twenty four cats, and somehow, in the stupid shock and anger of the early morning, huddled in his car with the few belongings he had been able to salvage once the fire was put out, he smiled. The sound of ambulances still blared around him in the gloom of the early morning.

The image of the flames wouldn’t leave his mind. The wood crashing down around him, the screaming of children. The screaming of mothers. No one had died, but many came very close, their blackened bloody bodies writhing on cots that were loaded into more ambulances than he had ever seen in one place, a crowded cemetery of vehicles wailing and driving around, drowning out the sound of the people wailing and crying out.

The firemen told him that no one had died. The firemen also told him that he was lucky. He didn’t know what to believe. 

He focused on definite truths. That was advice a therapist had given him in the past, to focus on what was definitely true and what he could prove to himself and others. For instance, it was 6:53 A.M. on a Sunday in August. That one was the easiest. Secondly, he had been injured. Not as badly as others, but he was injured, and that mattered. Third, he hadn’t lost anything that couldn’t theoretically be replaced, cost aside. 

He leaned his head on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly at its sides as he eased his breathing. Today was a Sunday. He could work with Sunday. 

The drive was muscle memory by now. He felt a numbness in his body. He vaguely remembered being pulled out of the fire, still conscious, remembered a mask being placed over his face, one that made his breathing sound loud and laboured in his head. A pinprick in his arm. An unknown needle. Could’ve been anything. 

He scratched the side of his face and kept driving. Sunday. 

The garage would’ve been opening soon, but he knew that Poe came in early on weekends, before the sun had risen. He liked the sun, that Poe. The sun worsened the pounding in his head. Guilt trickled into the back of his mind, but he was too dizzy to remember why. Everything looked too bright. Too bright, too hot. 

A kiss on his arms first, like a gentle scolding smack, gone to a harsh burn, a burn hotter than he could ever describe, like a knife was slowly ripping into his flesh and melting his arms and his cheeks. 

He scrambled out of bed. The stench of egg rot filled the air, and he knew what was happening. He just knew. Everything was a blur. The crashing of floorboards drowned out the screams of people, but he heard his neighbours, the people he greeted politely in the hallways, who’s children he sometimes babysat, the expectant mother who lived two doors down. Heard them screaming for help he couldn’t give, saw their raw and bloody bodies loaded onto those ambulances later. 

All of the residents were outside. All but one. 

One wasn't loaded onto the ambulance. He knew her- she had an older brother his age, and she once knocked on his door and asked him if she could use the telephone to call her mother at work. She looked dead. There was nothing he could do, though, because when he tried to dash towards her, a burning pile of bricks tumbled down atop of her, and he ran away with a ragged gasp.

The floor collapsed under his feet no matter where he stepped. He didn’t know how he managed to get down the stairs to the main floor. Something was pouring down his legs. He thought his skin was melting off his body. He felt the brick hit his head, but only distantly, only somewhere far off. 

It was a hot night out, made hotter by the fire, but compared to the burn of the building, stumbling outside was a nosedive into a tub of ice. 

He didn’t realize how light headed he was. “He needs a hospital, call someone!” He collapsed on the ground. He reached up to feel for the oxygen mask, but it wasn’t there. There was no nurse. Just the burn of the August sun, and the opening of the door to Solo Auto Body, and panic. A voice. Two.

He was lucky he’d made it to Sunday. 

-

Hospital lights, in their cold tone, did not hurt Finn’s eyes when he came to. They were bright, but they were just hospital lights. He shifted and groaned at the uncomfortable feeling of an IV drip up his arm. A nurse was next to him, and he frowned. She was tinkering with the machines next to him and hadn’t yet noticed that he was awake. He cleared his throat, an action that made him wince. 

The nurse glanced down at him and gave a tiny gasp. “Good morning, Finn! We’ve been waiting for you to wake up! Try not to move, alright?” 

Everything still felt overwhelmingly fuzzy. He was really only half conscious. The nurse said more, but he couldn’t make it all out. His eyes closed again and he allowed his thoughts to drift. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in the hospital, stuck in a bed in what he was sure would be excruciating pain without the iv. 

A few hours passed like that, just laid in bed, a nurse occasionally entering, tinkering, then leaving. It gave him time to think. Would he be able to attend university like this? That was, if a grad school he wanted even accepted him. Had his parents found him? Surely they could have, if the fire got into the news. The last thought had one of the machines beeping a little faster. 

Thoughts of what he would do if they found him filled his mind. He would have to move again, and then what? How would he finish his degree? Would they send people after him, or would they leave him be? Would they even care enough? But surely after that one time, they would-

“I need to see-”

“Sir, visiting hours start at one!”

“I don’t care!”

“You aren’t his family, I cannot let you-”

“Fuck’s sake, he has no family!”

The yelling outside of Finn’s door quieted to angry whispers, but it didn’t last long. Poe barged into the room, startling Finn. His eyes were puffy and rimmed red. His face was blotchy. This was the first time Finn had ever seen him in normal clothes, and not covered in car oil. 

“Hey buddy, easy. You want me to call the nurse?” Finn shook his head. He still felt incredibly sleepy. “Ah, they had to give you some tranquilizer. You put up a fight, you know? They said something about the fire doing it, yeah. Yeah, the fire it… Finn, why didn’t you go straight to the hospital?” 

Poe’s voice seemed to echo in his mind. His lips felt heavy when he spoke. “‘s’not that bad. Just burns.” 

Poe frowned. “You damaged your lungs. You were in the building for a long time, they said.” 

Finn darted his gaze away. “What time is it?” 

Poe glanced above the bed. “Almost noon.” 

Finn frowned. “I was out for a few hours?”

There was a hand on his forehead.”Two days, actually. It’s Tuesday. I’ve been, uh, waiting for you to wake up.” Poe’s hair was messier than usual and his clothes were all rumpled. Dark purple wells lay under his eyes. 

“What do you remember from the fire?” Finn didn’t speak for a moment, and when he did, his voice was raspy and parched.

“I saw a little girl.” He didn’t look up, staring at the scratchy blanket, and Poe didn’t try to interrupt him. “Sticking out from under a bunch of bricks. Saw her arms and her head, all twisted up. They didn’t save her. Her dad was looking for her. I didn’t tell him, and-” his voice hissed painfully in his throat, and then Poe had a tissue and was wiping away tears Finn hadn’t realized were falling. His hands were gentle, but they trembled. 

Finn took in a shuddering breath. He could feel a dull stabbing pain in his chest. “They said lots of pets died. Made me think of you.” He went quiet after that and looked up at Poe. His face was scrunched up in worry, hesitance. 

“No one died. The nurse told me that.”

“The nurse is a liar.”

“You sure you don’t want me to call anyone?”

Finn shook his head, and Poe pulled his hand away. He felt nauseous suddenly, like the world was spinning, and closed his eyes. He heard Poe drag a chair closer, and the steady beep of machines next to him. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the drip. Down the hall, the sound of people walking. 

For a long time, they just sat in silence. It was nice. It reminded him of when Poe would work, and he would sit there and just listen. In his morphine haze, he faintly remembered their last meeting. “Poe.”

Poe looked up at him, and Finn cleared his throat with a wet little sound. “I wanted to tell you-”

He heard the door open, and the words died in his mouth. Han stood in the doorway. He looked just as worried as Poe, if not more. Behind him, a nurse was calling to him in protest, telling him that he wasn’t allowed to enter. Han shut the door in her face.

“He awake?” Poe nodded, and Han walked closer to the bed. “How you doing, boy?” 

Finn shook his head. “Everything is still fuzzy.” 

Han nodded. “Nurse said it was stress. Said you stressed out so much you didn’t realize how much damage there was. You’ve gotta take better care of yourself, near gave us both a heart attack.” Han pulled a chair up to the bed. Finn looked between the two of them, Han stoic and worried and Poe still rubbing at his eyes in a pinching motion

“Why are you two here?” The two looked at one another, and then down at Finn. 

Han was the first to speak. “I heard someone call for an ambulance. Figured there must have been an accident or something, but instead I saw you shaking on the floor a few feet from the shop. You were unresponsive, and covered in burns. So I called an ambulance, and Poe insisted he ride in the back. He held your head still until the- whatever it was, until it passed.” 

Finn looked up at Poe. He was frowning. “You don’t remember?” Finn shook his head. He didn’t remember anything after reaching up for the oxygen mask. “You were saying a lot of strange stuff. You said your skin was melting and... that the floor was gone? He said that, didn’t he?” He looked up at Han, who hummed in agreement. 

He didn’t get the chance to say anything, because a nurse barged in. She scolded Han and Poe for not calling her and ushered them out of the room, talking about visiting hours. When she came back into the room, she injected something into the IV pouch, and that was the last thing he remembered before he blacked out. 

-

Finn got out of the hospital the next day with a paper bag full of medicine, gauze, and topical cream for his blisters, and a much clearer head after being taken off the morphine. Poe had come to see him out of the hospital. When he stepped outside, he was struck with the realization that he had nowhere he could go. His home was gone.

They both got in Poe’s car, a little BMW that he’d fixed up himself. Poe waited until Finn had strapped himself in before he backed out of the parking lot. Finn was lost in his thoughts. He could rent a room somewhere, but he couldn’t work in his state so there was no way he would be able to afford it for longer than a few days. He didn’t really have any friends he could call up. Mathematics was a lonely degree. 

“So, my place?” He looked up at Poe. 

“What? No. I’ll figure something out, you don’t need to-”

“Buddy, you’ve come to get your car fixed more times than I can count, and I know it costs you. You spend every bit of your free time with me, and you help me out for no cost. It’s the least I can do.” 

“No, Poe, it- Look, I get that you’re trying to be nice, but really. Especially after all that shit I said-”

Poe silenced him with a pointed look. “I’m not offering you my home out of pity, Finn. You were in a fire and you lost your home, and you are my friend. You don’t have to stay if you don’t wanna, and I won’t force you.” His voice cracked on the last word, and Finn took a chance to look at him properly. His face was sunken, exhaustion exasperating every line and wrinkle. 

“You do too much for me.”

“It’s nice to have company.”

Finn bit the inside of his cheek and looked down at his lap. “Only if you let me pay you rent or something.”

“I can live with that.” Poe reached forward and pressed a button on the radio, and upbeat music filled the car. Finn stared at where his hand had just been. The rest of the drive was quiet until they rolled into Poe’s parking lot.

He followed Poe into the house. Seemed odd that he would own a house despite living alone. As soon as the door opened, he heard loud meowing getting closer to the door, and Poe dropped to his knees to pick up a fat orange tabby and nuzzle him up to his face, cooing, “Baby, oh I missed you! Han feed you like he said he would? Good boy! Hey, no biting!” Poe stood back up, but now with a purring cat in his arms. “Come with me, I’ll show you where to put those and then we’ll fix you something to eat.”

There was a bedroom upstairs with big windows lining a wall, and a slanted roof. A bed was at one end, and a wardrobe was at the other. It was much nicer than his apartment. He walked inside and surveyed the simple room, and when he turned back around, Poe was crouched on the ground to gently place the cat back down. Finn dropped his stuff on his bed, watching him whisper to the cat while it purred and rubbed up against his ankles. There was something endearing about that, how much he cared for it. A moment later, he stood back up and headed downstairs, and Finn followed. 

They ate chicken and rice on the couch with the television on to some science fiction movie Finn hadn’t seen before, but Poe seemed into it. He set his empty plate on the coffee table when he was finished eating. Poe was focused enough on the television that he didn’t notice Finn shift closer. Their thighs bumped together again, and Finn froze. That caught Poe’s attention. 

Poe looked down at him. He met Finn’s gaze and blinked. Finn’s heart pounded in his chest and he worried that Poe would move away. Instead, Poe draped his arm over the back of the couch behind Finn, careful not to touch the many burns on his back. Finn smiled up at him, trying to ease his own nerves.

“… Thank you. For all this.” It came out as a whisper. The sound of the television was drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears. 

“I should be thanking you,” Poe said in a murmur. Finn thought his eyes flickered down. It was done in a blink, and then he was gazing back into his eyes. 

“What for?” Finn asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. 

“Waking up,” he urged, leaning back on the couch while his eyes never left Finn. “You were in critical condition for two hours, buddy. We really didn’t know if you were gonna make it, and nothing we did could have helped.”

This was news to Finn. Surely he knew that his burns had been bad, and the doctor had read off a short list of what had happened an hour after a nurse pumped another shot of morphine in him, so the words were difficult to remember. “I was gonna die?” 

Poe smiled, but the expression was strained. “You didn’t, though. You’re alive and well and- careful, Baby Eight on your right.” The cat hopped onto the couch next to him, nosing at his empty plate, and Poe relaxed.

“I.. I think I’m going to go to bed.” Finn felt a pang of regret when the words left his mouth, but he didn’t let himself dwell too long on the faltered smile on Poe’s face as he stood up. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Poe pulled his arm back to his body and nodded. 

“See you in the morning.”

“See you.”

When he went upstairs, he made sure that he laid in bed in a careful position so as not to agitate any of his wounds. As he fell asleep, thoughts of Poe filled his mind. There it was, that lump in his throat again. He could hear the sound of the television halting, and footsteps. He heard Poe heave a great sigh, and he remembered that he hadn’t yet apologized.

-

 

Sleep never came easy to Finn. It was alright the first week or two after the fire, especially with the knowledge that Poe was in the room next to his in case anything happened. It was perhaps the eighth or ninth day that the bad thoughts started up again.

Where there had once been thoughts of him being hurt, there were now thoughts of Poe. Car accidents. House fires. Plane crashes. Robberies. All sorts of dangers in the world. His fingers twitched, and he glanced at the digital clock next to his bed that Poe had gotten him. Half past two in the morning. 

For a short while, he did manage to stave it off. He laid in bed with his eyes screwed shut, trying to force himself to sleep. The image of that girl in the fire replaced with Poe- that was what did it.

He was up out of bed with the same speed as that night in the fire. He pulled on a pair of socks to muffle the sound of his footsteps and crept downstairs. The first thing he came upon was the door. Locked, as he always made sure it was. He tried to open it, and it didn’t budge, but he unlocked it and locked it again for good measure. 

Next was the living room. He crouched behind the television and unplugged everything, neatly tugging the wires away behind the television. He took down the clock and took out the batteries and placed them neatly on the table before replacing the dead thing again on the wall. 

Poe found him in the kitchen. The lights flicked on and Poe squinted, rubbing his eyes. He halted as he took in the scene. “Finn, what… What are you doing?” he asked, his voice breathy with sleep. The microwave, coffee maker, oven, refrigerator, and toaster had all been unplugged and pushed away from the wall. The microwave had been pushed away from the sink, as well. Finn yelped and jumped, nearly dropping the handful of knives he had been tucking into a lower drawer. 

“Shit- I’m sorry Poe, I didn’t-”

“Hey, it’s alright, I promise.” He could see that Finn was starting to panic and he feared he might drop the knives and hurt himself. He took a slow step forward, holding his hands up in a calming motion. “You need help?”

“No, no, just go back to bed,” he said, clenching the knives tightly in his hands. “I’ll fix the living room too!”

“The living room?” He raised his eyebrows, trying to make sense of what was going on. He’d never seen Finn behave like this, but right now, he just seemed scared. “You can put the knives down, Finn. I’m not mad, I just need you to tell me what’s happening.”

Finn chewed on his lower lip, then shakily put the knives back where he had got them from. He moved slowly to the first appliance and started to put it back into place. “I… I have this thing that happens.”

“Is it what makes you do this?” Poe wanted to help, but he also didn’t want to intrude on what was going through Finn’s mind. Besides, he was still waking up. He looked up at the clock to check the time, but it wasn’t ticking, and the batteries were in a bowl on the table. 

Finn nodded. “It doesn’t get this bad often. I saw doctors for it, and it was almost gone for a while, but ever since my exams, and then with the fire…” He looked up at Poe after plugging the toaster back in. His brows were knit together in worry. “I feel like the fire could happen again. I know it probably won’t, but it probably wouldn’t have in my old place too, and it still did.”

Poe stood contemplating for a while. Finn watched him, anxious, until Poe spoke. “What if you do this? Does it help?”

Finn shrugged. “It’s complicated. Yes, but no.”

“Then what helps?”

The next twenty minutes were spent putting things back where they belonged and discussing ways Finn could make things easier on himself and ways he could stop a compulsion from starting. He was careful about how much information he let Poe in on. He stayed as vague as possible whenever he could. Poe never seemed to mind.

Once they were finished, Poe headed back towards the stairs. Finn plopped down on the couch and flipped on the television on a low volume, insisting that he was no longer sleepy. Through the blinds, the orange light of early morning peeked through.

Two hours later, Poe would come downstairs after a nap to find that Finn was slouched on the sofa, fast asleep, while something played on the television. Poe briefly went back upstairs and came back with a pillow and a wool blanket, carefully guiding Finn’s scarred up body to lay properly before he covered him with the blanket. He smiled to himself. Finn looked absolutely exhausted. He wondered how long he’d been awake last night. Tucking the blanket up once more, he then wandered into the kitchen to prepare breakfast while Finn snoozed away.

 

-

It took Finn a month to recover fully. Some of the burns were still a little raised, but he could walk and talk and go to school when it started up. When he wasn’t at school, he was at the shop with Poe and Han, and Han’s new apprentice, Rey. He and Rey became close friends. 

It was easier to tell Rey things he never spoke of. Maybe it was because she was a little younger than him. Maybe it was her air of wisdom. He didn’t know. He just didn’t like lying to her, so when she asked him one day in mid October why he never spoke of his family, he didn’t cover it up.

“We lived in this ultra-religious cult down south, and they found out I was gay and some other stuff that didn’t agree with the religion. I managed for a few months, but it was bad. Got out as soon as I could, worked my ass off and got a scholarship here. I didn’t even know that the life I lived was unusual.” 

Rey glanced up from the parts she had been repairing. “Good that you got out.”

Finn shrugged it off, but inside he felt a wave of relief wash over him and make him giddy. He hadn’t told anyone since he moved here a few years back. 

“Have they tried to contact you?”

He snorted and nodded. “Sent a damn police car after me. I had to explain to him what was going on. I was eighteen, so he didn’t need to tell them anything, and as far as I know, he never did. Never got another police car at my door.”

“They sound horrible.”

“They really were.”

Rey went back to what she was doing for a moment, then paused. “What would you do if they did find you?”

“I would run. Done it before, I’ll do it again.”

“Does Poe know?”

Finn hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t see why he would need to.”

“He cares for you.” 

“Yeah, but in a fatherly way.” Rey stared incredulously at him when he said that, for so long that he frowned. “What? What did I say?” She scoffed and looked down at her work, and he worried that he’d said something wrong. “Come on Rey, it’s true!” She looked back up at him, and there was a playful smile on her face. 

“Just, keep it in mind.” He pestered her for more details as to what her words meant, but she didn’t budge, and he went home at the end of the day more confused than he had felt in a while.

-

The winter months came quickly, and soon it was exam time and Finn was spending more time at home. Poe’s house. He could’ve moved out by now, but every time he brought it up, Poe insisted he stay, that it wasn’t a bother, that it was nice even, to have someone around. So Finn had stayed. 

It was eight in the morning and Finn was curled on the couch with a textbook in his lap, studying for his statistics final next week. It was too cold to go to the library and too snowy to drive anywhere, so the shop was closed today. “You want some coffee?” Poe called from the kitchen. Finn could hear the sleepiness in the hoarseness of his voice.

“I’ll have some, yeah!” Finn called back. He heard the pop of a can being opened. Cat food, for Baby Eight. The sound of the coffee maker rolling and Poe turning on some music drifted in from the kitchen as he fixed up breakfast. Finn’s culinary talents stopped at pasta and corn flakes with milk, so Poe was usually the one cooking. 

When Finn could smell breakfast, he plopped the textbook onto the couch and walked into the kitchen. Poe was at the stove, humming and waving gently to the music. He’d opened up the big windows so the whole kitchen was full of morning light and they could see the snow falling outside. Poe got the cups and plates, and Finn got the coffee and the food. It was their routine of the past few months. Just like it had been in the garage, they ate their meals together, mostly in silence. 

Once the meal was done, they cleaned up in the same manner, only exchanging a few words. For all the light heartedness he exhibited, Poe was not a morning person in the slightest. He didn’t know how to have a proper conversation until he’d had his coffee. Finn was the opposite- he woke up early to bask in the morning. Poe used to jokingly call him a rooster. 

When they finished cleaning up, they would sit at the table and Finn would drink his coffee. He didn’t like to drink it with his food, and Poe would always wait. They sat across from one another, both staring out of the window and watching the snow gently fall. 

Poe stretched his arms behind his head and glanced outside at the snow falling. “Finn, I was wondering.”

“Yeah?”

“We should adopt another cat.”

Finn chuckled and looked at his friend. “We? You’d be the one adopting.”

“No, no, I want you to have a say in this. Should we adopt another cat? I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think we both spend enough time at home individually to look after two.” He looked very serious for a thirty something year old man considering bringing a second cat into his home. A slow grin spread across Finn’s face. 

“You’re a weird one, you, Poe Dameron.”

“No listen! I was looking online last night, and I found this gorgeous babydoll…” Poe went off about the various cats he’d found on a shelter’s website, and Finn listened with equal fervor. After a few minutes, he stopped and smiled at Finn. “What’re you thinking?”

“Nothin’.”

“No, there’s something or you wouldn’t be staring at me like that.”

Finn shifted in his chair with a creak, and for a moment, he was silent. Poe looked so content. The exhaustion on his face had washed away weeks ago, and in its wake was the same handsome face that Finn had fallen for the first time they met. He was laid back, and he slept more at night. But a question had been festering in Finn for too long now.

“Do you remember when we talked before the fire?”

Poe’s face fell as he was caught off guard. “I… Yeah, yeah, I remember. What… What about it?” 

Finn took a deep breath, pulling at his collar. He averted his gaze down to his cup of coffee and continued. “I never apologized. I mean, I guess I tried to multiple times, but you would look really happy or someone would interrupt, so… Anyways, I’m sorry Poe. I’m sorry I was an ass on such a tough day, and I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls.” Poe hadn’t said anything, so he looked back up. He was peering outside. He didn’t look any different than he had a few moments ago. 

“Can I ask why?”

“Oh, God, uh…” He brought a hand to his face and ducked his head. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by his skin. “It was some dumb reason, I think my grades had dropped or something.”

Poe began to laugh, and Finn looked at him in startled horror. “You okay?” The other shook his head, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hands. 

“Oh, look at the both of us! Both still so nervous about stuff from months ago, like a couple of grandmas! Come on Finn, I snapped at everyone. I told Han far worse that day. Then I walked in the next day and apologized for an hour, and because he was used to my shit he didn’t let me apologize for any longer.” A smile lingered on his face as he turned to look at a surprised Finn. “I tried to call you, but when you didn’t answer, I figured I’d pissed you off for good. I thought, well, maybe someone you knew had died, or maybe I had just been so horrible and not remembered. Maybe you were gone. So when you turned up at the shop, having a seizure on the asphalt, fuck! I didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry, or upset or panicked. I’d spent so long trying to forget you, but I couldn’t. Maybe it’s selfish of me to have overextended, but you didn’t seem to mind. It’s like how you worry that I’ll go up in flames, except you really did, Finn. I almost lost you, three times in the span of a few weeks. Almost. It really put everything between us in perspective.”

Finn was gawking, he knew, but he couldn’t look away from Poe as he spilled his heart out. Poe felt bad? Why would he feel bad when his own mother had died? Why was this selfish? As far as Finn could see it, he was the one being selfish by accepting the offers to stay with Poe, for another month, every month. “I don’t understand. You don’t hate me? You didn’t?”

Poe shrugged, and Finn wanted to rip his hair out. None of this made sense. He didn’t understand why Poe had done all this, and he wasn’t getting a clear answer. His upbringing hadn’t prepared him for conversations like this, so he just avoided making friends at all costs. Poe was his first one. Times like these reminded him why talking to people was just so difficult for him. “Why do you care? Why didn’t you just leave after you found out I was alive, why,” his voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat, “didn’t you just leave?”

“I tried to. I did. I didn’t like what I was feeling,” Poe said. He began to frown, then shook his head. “I needed some time to sort through everything. You were in a coma, and I got the time that I needed, whether I liked it or not.”

“And?” Finn could note the impatience in his own voice, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“I’ve decided that I can’t quit you, Finn.” He nodded, self assured. He hesitated before he spoke again. “I think I’m in love with you.”

The world seemed to have come to a halt. He had expected, perhaps, insistence that Poe wasn’t all that sensitive. Maybe he would have even forgotten, or Leia would have encouraged him to forgive Finn. But this brought a flood of emotions that choked up his words and brought with it hard memories that muzzled any elation he would have otherwise felt. “... No, Poe, you don’t really…” He smiled, at the same time blinking tears away. He heard Poe curse under his breath and snatch up a tissue, wiping away a tear as they began to fall. “We really are like little old ladies,” he said with a breathy laugh. Poe only smiled, worried. He said nothing until the tears stopped and Finn was sitting and not saying a word, not meeting his gaze. He racked his mind for something to say as the silence painfully scraped on. It was difficult to put into words, so when he did speak, he did so slowly. “I feel guilty.”

“I think a lot of people like you and me feel guilty, especially at first.”

He whipped his head up, and Poe was pulling his legs up to cross them on the chair. “I don’t wanna feel guilty.”

Poe bit his lip, and then he was leaning forward, across the table and right up to Finn’s face. So close to Finn’s face, the hesitation in his eyes was clear. Their lips brushed for the slightest of moments, and then something in his gaze shifted. He was just as terrified as Finn was, but then Finn brought a hand to his thick curls and their lips met in a sweet kiss. Poe’s lips were warm and still tasted like coffee and sugar. The kiss brought with it a wave of warmth and the fear was gone and all Finn could do was close his eyes and relax. 

They parted with shallow breaths, and Poe murmured, “Is this okay?” Any words Finn wanted to say were stuck in his throat like syrup, so he nodded and leaned forward into another kiss. Poe cradled his face, and his hands were shaking, but it felt so tender and right. Poe was beaming when he pulled away, his hair ruffled from Finn’s hands. Finn grinned back. 

“What do you think, then? 

“I think I love you too, Poe Dameron.” Poe laughed, and the sound made Finn giggle back. It was a sound that brought sunlight into a snowy day, a sound that made Finn want to shout to the world his proclamations of love. Poe had messy hair and eternally rumpled clothing, and lines by his eyes whenever he smiled. He still liked watching science fiction movies, and he flew tiny airplanes in his free time. He met Finn’s gaze with a warm smile. He was perfect.

“How did I end up lucky enough to meet you, Finn? How did you stumble into my life?” Finn smiled and took hold of his coffee again.

“I bought a shitty car,” he said with a laugh. No guilt could stop him from leaning onto Poe’s shoulder, from relaxing into his hold as he wrapped an arm around Finn’s shoulders. Nothing could make him regret this. He was in love on a snowy Sunday morning, and it was bliss.


End file.
